With feelings of deep regret and loss among his friends and colleagues, we sadly report the passing of Mark Dmitrievich Sonin at 78 years of age on 26 January 2010 following a long illness. As a Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Science in Biology, and professor, M. D. Sonin was a well-known and internationally respected scientist in the field of parasite faunistics, systematics, biogeography, and ecology of helminths. His long and distinguished career began under the guidance of Academician K. I. Skrjabin, the influential founder of the “Russian school” of helminthology.
M. D. Sonin was born on 1 August 1932 in the Ivanovskay oblast' in western Russia. We do not know much of his youth, and family life would have been challenging with his father having been subjected to repression in days of Stalin. He was educated in Gor'kiy (now Nizhniy Novgorod) State University in...